We held a Conference and an Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 20 November 2004 at the St Thomas Centre. At the AGM, we looked back over the events of the previous year and made plans for the year ahead. The year 2003/4 saw a lot of developments within the CLA, including the establishment of a head office base and the employment of a full-time National Development Worker. In looking to the year ahead, as well as developing the websites and our access to files expertise, we also agreed to continue work on developing our leaving care guide and to enter into discussions with the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers (ACAL) about collaborative work on the legal issues surrounding care leavers bringing cases of past abuse to court.
We also elected a new Executive Committee, whose details can be viewed under the ‘Contacts’ section of this site, and agreed the following objectives:
- To work in partnership with other agencies to address the negative stereotyping of care leavers by the media.
- To provide internet-based information services to care leavers.
- To respond to requests for training and advice by service providers to children in and leaving care.
- To improve care services for care leavers and children in care.
- To actively promote and enable individual care leavers to gain access to files held on them, as permitted under the 1998 Data Protection Act.
- If you think you can help us to fulfil these objectives, do get in touch.